Science and technology

Special report: Robotics

Immigrants from the future

ROBOTS are having their moment. Today they can jump, walk, speak and run. But they're at their best when collaborating, soothing the elderly or even making art. (Read our special report on robotics in this week's issue.)

Let's be frank. The long term political implications of robot technology cause me concern!

Let's consider the apocalypse of possibilities ...

Issac Asimov "I Robot" ... hopelessly romantic about then outcome;

Will Smith in "I Robot" ... a much more likely outcome;

Tom Cruise in "Minority Report" ... do we really want a department of pre-crime, the mass imprisonment of non-criminals by kangaroo courts?

Issac Asimov in "The Dead Past", on the inappropriate use of time scanners, half the world's population using social media time scanners to reminisce about their youth;

Arthur Forges in "The Rescuer", about the first US time portal, and the fundamentalist zealot, who, taking one of the first trips, armed with an automatic rifle and 5000 rounds, travelling to Golgotha to rescue Jesus from the Romans, forcing the scientists to "self destruct" it;

and any number of other science fiction writers, say, for Blake's 7, Star Trek, etc etc who have warned about the possibility of certain technologies to be misused for purposes which are not sensible nor beneficial to the majority:

The lessons to learn is that technology makes a good servant but a bad master. That humans have to stay in control. That giving autonomy and rights for intelligent robots presages the end of the human race.

Great report. Although I'm a little surprised that unmanned aerial systems (UASs) didn't get as much airtime considering the ludicrous ads by Amazon and surprising federal ruling against the FAA. I'd also think that the driving force behind unammed systems, i.e., autonomous, i.e., not tethered by cable, is something as seemingly benign as the battery. Recent, significant advances in lithium polymer power cells are really what's allowed the proliferation of drone technology. But even then, you'd be lucky to get anymore than 30 minutes of flight with 2 kg of payload. So, Amazon, how do you plan to deliver heavy books again?

We're, or more precisely Amazon, is back to the 50's ads of flying cars and jet packs.
Taking something up in the air is frightfully expensive energy wise, unless it's a zeppelin. Even so going up a gravity well takes calories.
I would wager that Google's interest arises from volumes of data they'd collect on the goings on in the world with connected robots. Much of what they do is to digitize everything and flip that into salable information, although I expect much of it is just OCD allowed to run wild with speculative money because geeks are trendy atm.
Kinda interesting in light of the recent article about the math prize.

Many small drones are electric powered, so if you could find a cheap way to generate that electricity, flight could become very cheap, at least for unmanned devices. Consider the Zephyr, the solar plane that set the world record for continuous flight at 2 weeks. It's incredibly delicate and mostly impractical for deliveries and so on, but given time I expect solar panels will get better and solar planes will get more robust, and I absolutely think in the future similar devices could do things like provide internet access cost effectively.

And I disagree one failure will sour public opinion. I think "falling drones" would present far less of a hazard than car accidents do now, and people are obviously comfortable with the risks of cars, despite over 33,000 traffic deaths in the US last year. And unlike cars, you could set designated drone routes away from people, which I would think would drastically reduce injuries on the ground, and you would eliminate driver error as a cause of accidents, which makes up the vast majority of car injuries.